<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Till the Cows Come Home by needles</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29071815">Till the Cows Come Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/needles/pseuds/needles'>needles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bokuaka Detective drabbles [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:36:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,326</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29071815</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/needles/pseuds/needles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how carefully he dodges it's inevitable Bokuto will land right in the muck!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Bokuaka Detective drabbles [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116251</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Till the Cows Come Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bokuto strode up to the Cops leaning on the gatepost and flashed his badge. “Ok guys where’s the body?”</p><p>“Straight through this gate and down to the bottom of the meadow buddy,” one of them grinned as he unlatched the gate and swung it open. “Mind where you put your feet, them cows don’t seem to have no sense of hygiene.”</p><p>Bokuto glanced rapidly down and realised he was just about to put his foot right into a large damp cow-pat. He drew it back. “Great!” now he knew why the cops were waiting outside the gate.</p><p>Keiji followed him through into the field, “Come on Bokuto san, it’s just a bit of dung,” he laughed, striding off across the field.</p><p>Bokuto followed, hopping carefully from one patch of clear grass to another. “It’s fine for you Akaashi, you’re wearing gumboots.”</p><p>“Well you could too.”</p><p>“They make my feet ache Akaashi.”</p><p>“You need some orthotic insoles in them for support then. I do know a good podiatrist; I could get something for you. The arches of your feet would be supported properly and not ache.”</p><p>“Thanks Akaashi; now if you could just get them here ten minutes ago I could stop hopping about this field like Rudolph Nureyev.”</p><p>Keiji glanced back and tried vainly to suppress a grin at his antics, “Nureyev was graceful Bokuto san.”</p><p>“And he crushes my ego still further.”</p><p>“It’s big enough to take a few knocks.”</p><p>“It needs to be.”</p><p>They crested a rise in the meadow and Bokuto stopped at the sight before him.</p><p>“They didn’t say they’d left the cows in here,” he scowled at the large herd scattered across the lower part of the field.</p><p>Keiji looked at him with a pitying smile, “Bokuto san they’re just a bunch of harmless ruminants, they won’t hurt you if you don’t scare them. I’ll protect you if you’re frightened.” He set off down the slope giving Bokuto no choice but to follow, all the while watching the cows, watching him.</p><p>“I’m not frightened Akaashi, they’re just creepy. The way they watch you, chewing away, following you with those big eyes. You can just tell they’re ruminating on what you’d taste like.”</p><p>“Now that is ridiculous Bokuto san. “We have absolutely no way of communicating with cows that would enable us to divine their thought processes with any accuracy. For all you know they could be sitting there chewing and performing complex calculus in their heads.”</p><p>“Cows can’t count.”</p><p>“How do you know?”</p><p>“You think cows can count Akaashi?” he said incredulously.</p><p>“No Bokuto san, but I base my opinion on a study of their brains not just ‘they’re cows’. By the same token a study of their teeth and digestive processes shows they do not eat detectives, so you should be quite safe.”</p><p>“Aren’t you worried they’ll have compromised your remains Akaashi?”</p><p>“The remains are in a ditch and the area has been roped off. I imagine the smell will also have deterred the cattle.”</p><p>Looking at the bottom of the field Bokuto could just see police tape fluttering in the breeze. Keiji was making a bee-line for it.</p><p>As they got closer the breeze also wafted a familiar stench into his nostrils. “Smells ripe Akaashi, just how you like ‘em.”</p><p>“My preference is for clean dry bones Bokuto san, sadly you rarely bring me those.” He placed his kit on the ground, opened it, and pulled on a pair of gloves with a snap. Then he stepped down into the muddy bottom of the overgrown drainage ditch and Bokuto handed him his kit. Keiji looked at the pile of rotting flesh and bone lying half in the water and half in the lush vegetation.</p><p>“Male, 20 – 30. There appear to be multiple crushing fractures to the ribs and long bones. I would say he’s been here for at least a week. There is plenty of insect activity and some small amounts of predation but we should be able to identify him from dental records.  You’d best see if the techs have arrived yet to recover the remains.”</p><p>Bokuto pulled out his cell, turned, and looked up the hill, no sign of the techs but he couldn’t see much through the wall of cows that now surrounded them. “Akaashi?”</p><p>“Yes Bokuto san?” he answered, not raising his head from the corpse.</p><p>Bokuto retreated towards his partner. “Any idea what caused all those fractures?”</p><p>“Bokuto san you know I don’t speculate.”</p><p>“Not even a tiny bit?”</p><p>He sighed, “Well the last time I saw anything like this the victim had been trampled by stampeding horses.”</p><p>“So…trampled to death?”</p><p>“Possibly.”</p><p>“Would cows do as well as horses?”</p><p>“I suppose so. Why?”</p><p>“Take a look Akaashi.”</p><p>Keiji straightened up, raised his head and found himself staring into a pair of deep brown eyes. The heifer stared at him and chewed rhythmically. Then a long hot tongue came out and swiped the side of Keiji’s face leaving warm drool in its wake. Bokuto cringed. He had a sudden rush of sympathy for the cow as Keiji’s eyes took on a steely glint. It was going to regret being bold enough to climb into the ditch. 
Keiji stuck one hand out towards Bokuto, his eyes never leaving the cow, “Wipes!” He demanded like a surgeon in theatre. Bokuto rummaged in the kit box for the pack of baby wipes Keiji always carried, and handed him a couple. Still eyeball to eyeball with the beast Keiji wiped the side of his face clean.</p><p>“You!” he snapped, and Bokuto automatically flinched before realising Keiji was not addressing him. </p><p>“Get out of my crime scene NOW!” He ordered the heifer, pointing up towards the field, “and take your gawping girlfriends with you, this is not a side show,” he instructed. The cow gave a low moo and meekly turned, climbing out of the trench and setting off across the field, the rest of the herd following in her wake.</p><p>The sound of clapping came from behind him. “Way to go Akaashi, you sure showed her who’s the boss around here.”</p><p>Keiji grinned, “And you are going to need new shoes,” he pointed to Bokuto’s legs, shin deep in the muddy trench bottom. “Were you that afraid of a few cows that you jumped down here?”</p><p>“You just said they could have trampled that guy to death, I had to get down here to protect my partner,” Bokuto pleaded. Even as he said it he could see Keiji’s eyebrows rising in disbelief.</p><p>Keiji decided to let that one go, he could always save it for later he thought. He glanced up and saw figures descending the slope. “Well it looks as though the techs have finally arrived. I’ll get them organised so you’d best go, I imagine you have suspects to question.”</p><p>Bokuto looked puzzled, “Suspects?”</p><p>Keiji pointed at the cows, now over the far side of the field watching the progress of the techs.</p><p>“Very funny Akaashi, and just how do you suggest I get them in the interrogation room?”</p><p>“You’re the detective Bokuto, I’m just a humble scientist,” he smiled sweetly. “Though I think if you make puppy eyes at B586 she’ll follow you anywhere, she looked pretty smitten to me.”</p><p>Bokuto squelched his way to the side and clambered up out of the ditch. He tried in vain to wipe the mud off  his shoes and pants. He sighed, another ruined suit!<br/>
“Well you can tell miss goo-goo eyes over there that she can hope till the cows come home but she’s too late, I’m taken.”</p><p>Keiji looked at him, his eyes a mixture of shock and disappointment, “You are? When did that happen, Bokuto san?”</p><p>Bokuto grinned, “The day I met you Akaashi.” </p><p>Before he could respond Bokuto had set off up the field towards the techs and the cows, leaving Keiji standing, staring at his back, a slow smile creeping across his face.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It is a fact that cows are not quite as harmless as they might seem. Each year, cows kill about 20 people, typically by kicking or trampling. And about three-quarters of those incidents are reportedly deliberate attacks. So treat with respect :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>